For many years, smokers have been used to infuse flavors into different types of food. A desired flavor is usually provided for the food by burning a smoke-producing material to produce smoke in a smoker chamber where the food is being prepared. Examples of smoke-producing materials include, but are not limited to, wood, saw dust, wood chips, wood pellets, or other material that produces a desired flavor. These are other smoke-producing materials will be referred to herein as wood. The wood is usually in a pan inside the smoker chamber and a heating coil is used to raise the temperature of the wood thereby causing it to emit smoke which transfers the desired flavor onto the food in the smoker chamber.
The temperature required to generate smoke from the wood is usually higher and different at variable times than the desired cooking temperature. Therefore, in the process to generate smoke, the smoker chamber cooking temperature is usually raised beyond acceptable levels for cooking. Generating a desired smoke level, or varying smoke levels, at acceptable cooking temperatures is nearly impossible with a single heating source providing the heat for both smoke generation and food cooking in the smoker chamber.
It would be desirable to have a smoker that has one heating element to heat the wood to a desired temperature, and a second heating element to provide the desired cooking temperature for the food inside the smoker chamber. It would also be desirable to have different embodiments of the system that can produce a user-selectable smoke level inside the smoker chamber. These and other features of the present invention will be described in the disclosure.